What Breaks A Fast? (True Fast vs Intermittent Fasting)

What breaks a fast? There's been so much conflicting information out there

so people are confused and asking what do I do

so today we're gonna talk about what breaks a fast coming right up

the quick answer to that question what breaks a fast is really really simple

okay fasting is when you don't eat so if you put something in your mouth and

swallow you're breaking the fast that's the simplest strictest explanation so

what we really want to ask ourselves is why are we fasting and for most people

who watch this or doing intermittent fasting or concerned with what breaks a

fast I think what they're really asking what can I eat what can I drink and not

compromise the benefits of the intermittent fast okay so we could do a

spiritual or religious fast and some of those they say don't eat or

drink anything and then that's kind of their letter of the law they just

dictated that's the way it is don't eat or drink anything so some spiritual

religious fasts might allow nothing or they might allow water

some people might fast for gut health if you have a leaky gut if you have a

really upset stomach that just reacts and blows up and explodes no matter what

you put in there fasting is a great way to allow you gut some time to heal and

then you're not really concerned with anything other than giving the gut some

nutrients that help heal it and don't put anything in that irritates it so

bone broth would be excellent water would be totally okay herbal teas and so

forth totally all right so we're gonna leave those behind and we're gonna talk

about what I believe most people ask that question for because they're doing

intermittent fasting most of those people are trying to lose

weight and or reverse diabetes and insulin resistance so we're going to

assume that that's the goal to reverse reduce insulin resistance so I'm going

to put these in four different categories and we'll talk about this so

if you're trying to reduce reverse insulin resistance then everything is

okay you're still technically fasting for

insulin resistance purposes if you don't put anything in that triggers insulin if

there is no insulin response if there are no nutrients in there things like

coffee and tea then they're totally fine black coffee black tea green tea herbal

teas that aren't sweet they're totally fine they're not going to have any

influence on your insulin so from an insulin resistance perspective you're

still fasting because you're not changing that trend things that are not

okay things that will affect insulin and break your fast are things like sugar

juice honey and agave okay no matter what the amount they're really gonna

mess you up and even though honey and agave don't

have much of an insulin response they're very very low bligh semuc index because

they're mostly fructose fructose is the main reason that people are insulin

resistant in the first place because fructose can only be metabolized through

the liver so the fructose kind of Jam packs that liver full of sugar and it

develops fatty liver and insulin resistance that the honey and agave is

full of fructose which as at the core of the mechanism that develops insulin

resist all kinds of sugars and juices fruits stay away from them so then I

want to introduce something that a lot of people would say is breaking the fast

but if we stick to the letter of the law yes they break the fast because they

might have a little bit in response however I call them one

percenters because they have such a slight insulin response that it is

insignificant for the purposes of reversing insulin resistance so when you

don't eat your insulin is going to go down the longer you don't eat the more

your insulin is going to go down so if it helps you not eat for a very long

time if it helps having a few things to sort of get you through the day then

that is still going to assist you it's still going to help you with that

intermittent fast and whenever you have something that has what I call the 1%

response your insulin is going to drop and then you have that 1% response so

you get a little blip but they're so little

there's so little substance there's such a small response that your insulin just

keeps on dropping so for the purposes of reversing insulin resistance it still

keeps going so these things are not really going to hurt you in small

amounts ok so good fats those are things like MCT oil coconut oil and butter ok

they do have some calories technically there'll be a tiny little insulin

response but not so much that it really matters what's more important is that

you can sustain that fast if that helps you

herb teas are fine as long as they're not sweet if they're made with fruit and

they taste a lot of sweet they probably have a little bit of sugar in them and

then they would be in the no category lemon water now lemon does have a tiny

tiny little bit of sugar but it's so miniscule that if you put a teaspoon of

lemon in some hot water you're gonna be fine

it's going to be a tiny tiny little blip apple cider vinegar totally fine and

cream in small amounts I would also say is fine so a teaspoon a tablespoon and

some coffee or tea is going to create a tiny little blip and then you'll get

right back into getting more insulin sensitive again now that doesn't mean

you can drink a bottle of whipping cream because that's a meal okay then that

totally breaks the fast but so all of these are quantity dependent all right

just like insulin responses are quantity dependent these things also a quantity

dependence the only other thing to keep in mind is that if you're doing it for

weight loss and you are fasting to burn off fat then obviously you don't want to

eat so much fat that the body doesn't need to burn the fat off the body if you

supply enough fat in the diet it's going to burn that first and it'll never get

around to burning the fat on the body so again that's a quantity issue then I'm

going to quickly address something that most people on keto don't talk about and

that's poison because there are certain things that may help you stay in ketosis

or in fasting but if they're poison you're not getting healthier and what's

the point of losing weight if you're going to get sick

okay that's not why people do this they try to lose the weight because they want

to get healthy and we want to get healthy first so that we can lose the

weight so things like aspartame sucralose margarine and bad fats they

are poison they interfere with the balance and health and function of your

body so just stay away from them they're man-made they're chemicals they're made

in a laboratory or a factory chemical factory so don't ever touch those don't

doesn't matter if it helps you stay in ketosis or not there are good fats and

there are healthy non calorie sweeteners so so stick with those on that note

though I want to mention something else and that is when you eat something or

even when you don't eat something and you have an insulin response so how does

that happen well sweet taste so it's not just what

you ate what you put into your mouth and swallow it's what your brain perceives

there's a cephalic effect so anytime you eat something you taste something your

brain starts sending signals to your pancreas to make insulin long before

that food ever hits the stomach just having it in your mouth so you haven't

ingested any nutrients and yet your pancreas is producing insulin why is

that because the body is so smart it anticipates so they have found that

things that take that have a sweet taste even though they have no nutrients no

calories no technically no blood sugar impact stevia erythritol

any sugar alcohols I little maltitol etc and some of the sweet herb teas if you

perceive a sweet taste chances are you're making insulin in the pancreas

okay so it's very hard to quantify this because it's a subtle effect but I would

encourage people as much as possible if you do in keto if you're doing

intermittent fasting try to get away from the sweet taste because the sweets

is sort of what got you in trouble in the first place and if your body is

wired to make insulin based on that that can get you in trouble so everyone is

different and because this is sort of a non-material effect then it just depends

on how you're wired so the depend the responses could vary widely and I also

said that you might actually have an insulin response from not eating

something well how would that work well stress actually produces cortisol

whenever you're stressed your body senses that hey there's danger here I

need to mobilize resources so that I can deal with this danger

and now your core your adrenals release cortisol and the cortisol raises blood

sugar and when blood sugar goes up so does insulin so cortisol can actually

drive insulin resistance and has been proven to drive insulin resistance so

merely the fact of being stressed could actually break a fast so to speak so

keep all these things in mind sometimes it's not just about following the letter

the the the tighter you follow the letter isn't necessarily the best thing

if something helps you stay in fasting state or almost fasting state longer

such as here then then it's a good thing and you can consume a few hundred

calories in a day of non insulin triggering fats and and still get the

benefits so don't look too closely on on the technicality of it ask yourself why

you're doing it and learn what how insulin responses affect you so the

things that are off is anything that has significant calories any sugar any carbs

any protein because they definitely will trigger a significant insulin response

but the one-percenters and the coffee and the tea are in my opinion gonna be

safe bets just don't overdo these keep them in moderation and you'll be alright

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